Re: Alternatives to DRM?

Dominique,

There is an open source implementation of OMA DRM:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openipmp/

However, we should be clear that this and any other open source DRM is
likely still going to require license fees (to people not present in the
W3C) and will be subject to robustness rules that require techniques to be
used that make user-modification difficult (making it incompatible with
GPLv3, but nevertheless still open source).

Your question is a good one, though: are there alternatives to DRM that
would meet the goals of content providers and also address some of the
concerns that have been raised with DRM ?

I'm not in a position to say whether such alternatives are likely to
emerge, but the Encrypted Media Extensions at least create a space in which
such solutions could emerge. Browsers implementors could innovate in this
space and the Encrypted Media Extensions provide an API by which those
capabilities could be exposed to applications in a uniform (and so
easy-to-adopt) way. By contrast, the current situation with Flash and
Silverlight plugins or custom apps provides no such opportunity.

...Mark

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org>wrote:

> Le vendredi 12 avril 2013 à 11:54 -0400, Jeff Jaffe a écrit :
> > > I guess my point is that a positive assessment of that practicality
> > > should be a prerequisite in investing a Working Group time on that
> > > technology.
> >
> > You seem to be saying that the WG should not evaluate the solution
> > unless it has gotten traction in the marketplace.
>
> Not quite, I said it should be a prerequisite in investing a WG time; to
> be more explicit, I believe a FPWD is a sign that a WG is taking on a
> commitment to progress a document to Recommendation. I believe a
> prerequisite to that commitment should be an assessment of its
> practicality.
>
> > I believe that a major driver of getting traction in the marketplace is
> > the realization that it has unique value as a standard that sits in the
> > middle of a polarized discussion (hard-core DRM on the one-side and no
> > DRM on the other side).
>
> Agreed.
>
> > I would agree with you that there should be a prerequisite, but I would
> > argue for a weaker prerequisite.  A weaker prerequisite is that there
> > should be a WG participant willing to passionately argue for that
> > approach.  (I note that today soft-DRM does not even satisfy the weaker
> > prerequisite.)
>
> I agree that the no-DRM-camp has a duty to propose alternative
> approaches; this thread is my feeble attempt at building such an
> alternative.
>
> Dom
>
> > >
> > > Dom
> > >
> >
> >
>
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